My Beloved Sorceress
by RedLady
Summary: I couldn't remember who I was or how I got here, but somehow I found myself mixed up in the adventures of a beautiful sorceress in an unknown land.


Is there some connection between you and your Diablo 2 character. You might not think so but you never know . . .  
  
My Beloved Sorceress  
  
By: RedLady  
  
~  
  
Dedicated to Nukerliu who gave me the idea for this fanfic through one of his stories where his account on Battle.net is stolen and he lost his level 98 sorceress. Poor guy. But he did get her back. . .  
  
~  
  
The first thing I remember was being lost in some sort of wilderness. I don't know how I got there. I didn't even remember my name. Yet somehow I found myself at the feet of a beautiful female in this vast overgrown wilderness. Confused, I looked up at her. She wore a gown of green and held a huge staff streaked with colors of purple and blue. A blue orb at the top of her staff gave off the occasional sparks. We gazed at each other for a second, both amazed at the others presence. Then something else seemed to attract her attention.  
  
"Look out!" She said in what sounded like a musical voice. I was too dazed to really remember. There were creatures. Demons. They surrounded us. I really don't remember what happened. My head hurt. I couldn't think. Who was I? Who was she? I blacked out as I heard her screaming words in another language trying to drown out the growls and snares of the creatures who were attacking her. The last thing I saw was the flashing of blinding lights swirling around me.  
  
~^~  
  
I woke up laying on a cot in a tent with three woman leaning over me. I gazed at each starting to my right. It was of an old woman in a bright purple cloak. She smiled showing off yellowing teeth. I looked to my left and noticed a bright red head wearing warrior clothing with a stern look on her face. Then I realized that another being stood at the head of my cot. I looked behind me and again saw the beautiful lady I had seen in the wilderness. Had it all been a dream?  
  
"Who are you?" The red head demanded. I attempted to rub the back of my head as a headache returned. I winced at the loudness of her voice.  
  
"I will ask you again, stranger. Identify yourself!" She repeated.  
  
"Now Kashya, we have no idea what this young man has been through . . ." The old woman warned.  
  
  
"But that gives him no right to keep his identity a secret. I don't need to remind you of the Dark Wanderer . . ."  
  
"No, you don't." The old woman said frowning.  
  
I looked from the old purple-cloaked woman to the red headed woman. Finally the woman behind me stepped into my view. She smiled sweetly. I was astounded by her beauty and couldn't help but feel awkward in her presence. She looked much younger than I had originally thought. In fact she didn't look that much older that me. She looked a little different than I remembered from the wilderness. She looked less angelic and more human. . .  
  
She had long golden streaked brown hair pushed back by some sort of golden tiara behind her ears. Her dark brown eyebrows made a point above her nose and her small lips were a light pink. Golden hooped earrings dangled at her ears. Her green shirt revealed her midriff and hung loosely on her shoulders. She wore a green flowing skirt with two slits on each end. The hem of her skirt and the sleeves and neck of her shirt were embroidered with golden thread. She held onto the same staff I had seen her hold in the wilderness. Yet now it had lost its glow and seemed shorter. I eyed her up and down and she did the same to me. I looked away and focused my attention on the red head who's eyes were burrowing into me with suspicion.  
  
She grabbed my collar bringing her face up to mine and repeated, "Who are you?" I shuddered at her touch and her sour breath. Stuttering I answered, "I . . .I don't know."  
  
She released her grab and looked at me quizzically. "You don't know?" She asked as if I were mad.  
  
I looked down in shame. I tried to remember who I was, but the name evaded me. It was just a simple piece of knowledge. Why couldn't I remember it?  
  
"You must have gone through a lot, child." The old woman said putting her hand on my shoulder smiling. I looked over at the beautiful girl. She smiled at me and looked away.  
  
"If you don't know who you are, then how did you get here?" The red head whom I had heard the old woman call Kashya, said rather loudly.  
  
"I don't know." I said confused. I remembered a loud sucking noise and falling . . .   
  
"This sorceress here says you fell right out of the sky? Is that true?" She said looking at me suspiciously. The girl, who I presumed to be the sorceress looked up again and waiting patiently for my answer.  
  
"I don't remember. I . . ." I reached toward the back of my head. Something cold and wet was there. I brought my hand back and held it to my face and gasped at the redness of blood stained upon it. I again reached toward my head and felt it again. I seemed to be injured as my hair was matted with blood.  
  
"You have injured yourself." The old woman said. "I will be able to heal you, but I cannot help you remember who you are. . ."  
  
"I am Akara." The old woman announced. "High priestess of the Sightless eye and that is Kashya leader of the Rogues."  
  
I looked at them confused. What were they talking about? Kashya snorted at my confusion. Akara ignored her and then forced me to lay down.  
  
"Lay there for a minute." She shuffled through the pockets of her cloak. Pulling out a vial of some sort of red juice-like liquid in it, she held it up to my lips.   
  
"Drink." She ordered needlessly. I gulped down the cherry tasting liquid. It made me feel a little better.   
  
"You need rest in order to completely heal." She announced and she walked out of the tent.  
  
"Akara may think you are harmless stranger." Kashya said in a low voice. "But if you do anything suspicious . . ." She let the threat stand. And she hurried out of the tent without looking back.  
  
That just left the girl and me in the tent alone. I stared at her waiting for her to say the first words. She looked down shyly. Finally she looked up hesitantly and said, "Are you all right?"   
  
"Well considering I got my head banged up there." I said attempting at humor. "Somehow anyway. Though I don't remember how I did it." I added downcast. (I could have hit myself for sounding so dull!)  
  
"You fell from a high height." The girl explained. "I was coming back from the Den of Evil and you just . . . fell from the sky and landed before me!"   
  
"I don't remember." I laughed. "All I remember is . . . you were there . . . and there were monsters. . . and bright lights." The encounter in the wilderness was beginning to blur. It had all seemed like a dream. And what was the Den of Evil? It sounded vaguely familiar.  
  
"You don't remember anything else?" she answered unbelievingly.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"I am glad you are not any more injured than you already are. None of the monsters attacked you while I was fighting. They must have thought you were dead." She said changing the subject.  
  
"Monsters." I repeated. "What kind of monsters were they?" I said trying to remember.  
  
"They were simply Fallen and their Shaman. Easy to kill." She explained without hesitation.  
  
I shuddered at her attitude. "How. . . did you kill them?" I said almost afraid to ask. She didn't look like a warrior like Kashya did.  
  
"With a spell." She said shrugging.  
  
My eyes narrowed in confusion. "You're a sorceress?" I asked though I already knew the answer.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Someone called for her outside.  
  
"Sorceress!" I heard Kashya's voice call.  
  
The young sorceress cringed at the voice.  
  
"My name is Zeusa by the way." She said holding her hand out. . .  
  
  
  
  
-------------Images flashed through my mind. A king of Gods. Lightning bolts. Zeusa?------------  
  
  
  
But just as quickly as it had come the image vanished. I awkwardly shook her hand, still laying down. She smiled and said shyly, "Well I better go and leave you to rest."  
  
"Yes." I agreed suddenly feeling a little tired. She shuffled out dragging her staff on the ground, looking back at me with a look of concern in her face. I smiled and she vanished though the tent flap.  
  
As I was drifting off to sleep I heard Akara and Kashya talking. Without even listening I sensed that they were talking about me. I got up and crept to the edge of the tent flap to listen better.  
  
"I just don't trust him." Kashya was saying.  
  
"You don't trust anyone who is not a Rogue."  
  
"There is only two things he could be. A spy or a wandering idiot. He doesn't even know his name! Now how could an idiot survive out there? Therefore I conclude that he is hiding something."  
  
"His lack of memory may be due to the injury on his head."  
  
  
"I still don't trust him. And know this Akara. If he makes even the slightest amount of trouble, then I will not hesitate to shoot him."  
  
Akara sighed. I tensed upon hearing Kashya's oath. What kind of people were they? Shoot me? But I didn't do anything. That I could remember. I didn't think I was a bad person. But why did this Kashya mistrust me so?   
  
I didn't sleep well after that. I tried to remember who I was. The girl named Zeusa kept appearing in my head. I fell into a restless slumber imagining her smile as well as Kashya's stern face. I awoke upon hearing the light taps of raindrops upon the tent. I couldn't go back to sleep as the chill of the early morning air crept through my thin T-shirt. I heard the crackling of a newly made fire and decided to go to it.  
  
As I opened the tent flap I saw the most beautiful phenomena ever. In front of my tent the very air seemed disturbed. A blue crackling tear appeared in front of me as if something were ripping through the fabric of reality. An oval hole opened from the tear and out of it stumbled the Sorceress, Zeusa. Yet now mud streaked her face, and blood matted her skirt. She was dragging something much heavier than her own weight behind her. She was wailing making a sound similar to an injured animal. Tears mixed in with the mud on her cheek causing it to look as if she was crying dark brown tears.  
  
"Where is Kashya." She wailed. I was too stunned to say anything. She didn't say anything else and continued to call for Kashya. Many woman that wore the same kind of garments as Kashya came running up to her, but none of them were the red headed warrior. They all gazed at the bundle she was heaving through the blue shining oval. I then realized that the weight she was dragging behind her was a body. I couldn't help but turn away. I took a step back a wave of terror washing over me. Finally Kashya did come.  
  
When Zeusa saw her she stopped her crying and everyone was silent. Only the blueness of the ovalular circle behind her crackled occasionally. Zeusa stared at Kashya angrily. Kashya stared at her in surprise. Zeusa reached for the body and I cringed as she attempted to lift it up. She tried to throw the body at Kashya's feet, but it merely landed at her own feet with a thud.  
  
"I did it." Zeusa said in a horse voice. "I killed the one whom you could not!" Kashya looked down at the body and I thought I saw a shudder go through the proud woman's body. The body that lay at the sorceress's feet was of another warrior that looked similar to Kashya. Luckily some sort of ceremonial mask covered the corpses face. Yet the eye slits where dark and seemed to be looking my way.   
  
Kashya ordered two of the other woman to carry the body away. Zeusa was led away by two other women. I attempted to follow her, but one of the Amazon-like woman stopped me.   
  
"Let her clean herself and grieve by her self, stranger." The girl said with a strange accent I couldn't place.  
  
  
I didn't know what had just happened. What sort of people were these woman? I was shocked because I had never imagined Zeusa to be able to kill anyone.  
  
I went over to the fire to think and was surprised to see a man there. So far the only inhabitants of the camp seemed to be woman.  
  
"So you are the stranger that Kashya's been speaking of." The man said pleasantly. "It's nice to see another man out and about. Gheed isn't much to talk to now-a-days and the Rogues, well they're Rogues. What do you expect?"  
  
I didn't really know what he was talking about, but I nodded my head in agreement anyway.  
  
"My name is Warriv." He said and shook my hand firmly. "I would have been driving my caravan back East a long time ago, if it hadn't have been for all the evil activity going around lately."  
  
I asked him the question that had been burning in my mind ever since Zeusa had come back.  
  
"Who did Zeusa kill?" I said flat out. He looked me over not surprised by my question. "The sorceress? Kashya sent her on a quest to kill her former friend Blood Raven."  
  
"But why!" I said appalled by his nonchalant attitude. He shrugged. "She was corrupted and was about to wage war against the remaining Rogues in this encampment. Kashya couldn't stand fighting her former friend so she sent Zeusa on a quest to test her loyalty to us."  
  
"But how can she just kill somebody like that!" I said almost yelling.  
  
Warriv looked at me strangely. "You must not understand Stranger. I said she was corrupt. . ."  
  
I waited for him to say more but he seemed to think that the simple explanation would satisfy me. It didn't. He got up to put more logs on the fire. He was about to say something else but I had gotten up to leave.   
  
Who were these people? And how could they kill someone so easily. The body had looked human enough to me. And of all people, it was Zeusa who had done the deed. I would never have thought her possible. I decided to hide in my tent and contemplate my thoughts. I opened the tent flap and was surprised to see Zeusa there. She looked up surprised.   
  
"I'm sorry. I had forgotten that you were in this tent." I gulped and stood in front of her. She was washed now and she wore a loose robe around herself. He wet hair clung to her neck as she stared into the distance. I wondered how she could have washed so quickly.  
  
  
I wanted to hold her and make her feel better. I scoffed at my foolishness. This was a girl I had never met and already I wanted to comfort her. But for some reason I felt I knew her. I looked at her strangely trying to remember. It was as if a wall had been put up in my brain and I was still not able to over come it.  
  
"Have we met before?" I said still trying to remember. She looked up surprised at the question. "I mean did we know each other before I hit my head?"  
  
"No." She said simply. "I would have remembered."  
  
"If only I could remember." I said.  
  
"If only I could forget. . ." She began. "It was horrible stranger." I winced at the word stranger. Yet the truth was that I was a stranger to her and even to myself. "She made me do it. Kashya did." she rambled. "She said I may not stay on this encampment without killing Blood Raven first."  
  
"She said that?" I said feeling more shock at this Kashya.  
  
"Yes." She said wiping her face. "I still don't know why she couldn't have done it herself. Or at least come with me. Or help me in some way. But she said I had to do everything alone."  
  
"But why do you want to stay here?" I asked.   
  
"Now as a token of her gratitude I get to stay here in one of the tents and get free meals as well as a mercenary which I don't want . . ." Zeusa continued.  
  
"Don't you have a home or parents to go to?" I asked wondering why a young girl like her would have to fight just to get room and board in a small camp like this.  
  
She looked saddened at the question and I immediately regretted it.  
  
"I was taken from my parents when I was quite young. The elder's trained me to be a sorceress. They are the only family I have. And before I return to them, I must kill Diablo."  
  
I shuddered at the name. I knew I had heard it before. I knew he was something or someone evil.   
  
-----------More images flashed into my head. A demon. A devil. Hell. Zeusa was there. She died . . .-------------  
  
"Are you OK?" She was saying.  
  
"I . . ." What was happening to me? Was I seeing the future?  
  
"I'm fine." I said not wanting to mention my little episode. "But why do you have to kill this Diablo?" I said.  
  
  
"It is the final test." She said seriously. "In order for me to become a true sorceress I must preform this task." She continued as if she had been told this herself many times before. "Only then will I become one of the great elder sorceresses."  
  
"But why do you want to become a sorceress at all?" I argued fearing for her life.   
  
She looked appalled at my question. "What else will I do? Being one of the elder sorceresses is the only destiny I know."  
  
I looked down not really understanding what she was talking about. But I sensed that this was her culture. I sensed that she had lived like this since childhood.  
  
Then a new thought came to my mind. "What about me? Will Kashya make me kill someone? I'm not a warrior. That I know of anyway."  
  
She laughed. "Your clothes are strange, but I do not think you are a warrior either.  
  
My pride was a little hurt by her comment. But deep down I knew I had never carried a weapon of any kind. How was it that I came into a world where killing and mayhem seemed to be a part of everyday life? Who was I and where exactly did I come from?  
  
  
______________________________________________________________________________  
I simply type and whatever you see before you has been transposed subconsciously. If you have any objections blame my unconscious mind, not me.   
  
I'd better put this in too: Nukerliu really likes his marshmallows extra toasted. So any flames will be used for a grand cook out because I rather prefer a hotdog myself. Yum! : )-  
  
Nobody I know owns Diablo and Diablo 2. And I believe I know myself so therefore it is safe for you to assume that I do not own Diablo or Diablo 2 and you can't sue me. Nah, Nah, Naaah, Boo Boo. (I love making the disclaimers interesting!)  
  
Review please and I will mention your name in my next chapter. Doesn't that make you feel special? : ) 


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